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Banana Monkey Bread Muffins

There is just something about monkey bread that makes everyone happy. That cinnamon-y, pull apart, goodness is simply irresistible.

And yes, I’ve added bananas. If you’ve been reading along you might think I have a slight obsession with bananas…. You might be right. In fact, you are 100 % right. I love bananas. And I love monkey bread. The one thing with monkey bread however, is that you need a certain situation for monkey bread. Any one of the following is possible:

You are having a lot of people over for breakfast

Holiday party

You and your roommates plan on eating it over one weekend

You are making it by yourself and will eat it all over the course of one afternoon (hey, I’m not judging)

I say this because monkey bread is best eaten almost immediately, it is that good. BUT here is the solution to all of us who tend to bake a lot but don’t know a lot of people in a new city. CoughMEcough.

MUFFINS! Individual monkey bread goodness. This will be fantastic. I will still eat more than one ( I’m not ashamed) but it will be possible to have fresh monkey bread later…SCORE!

This is another one of those recipes that will take you a day to complete, so carve out some time in that busy schedule (haha, busy).

1 1/4 cup warm milk –I highly recommend using 2% or whole milk, but I did only have skim today. It won’t kill ya

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp salt

6 cups flour

2 large bananas, mashed

Cinnamon- Sugar Topping

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), melted

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon (you can also use less if you aren’t that big on cinnamon)

Vanilla Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. To make the dough: In a large mixing bowl dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir it around for a bit and let it sit for about 2 minutes. Add the milk, melted butter, sugar, eggs, salt and 3 cups of flour. Mix well. Next add the bananas and mix well, slowly add the next 3 cups of flour until the dough all comes together. I experimented a bit because the bananas made it a bit stickier than I would have liked.

2. Turn the dough onto a floured surface. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic ( coat your hands in flour, this will help). Do not over- knead, the result won’t be a nice soft dough. Have fun with this! I also apologize, you might have to add more flour, my dough was still sticky so I did. When you can poke your finger into the dough and it springs back it’s ready! Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

3. To make the cinnamon sugar topping: In a bowl combine the cinnamon and sugar. In another bowl melt the butter. Have your cupcake tins ready and lined at this point. Pull apart pieces of the dough and roll into balls about 1.5 inches or smaller. Dip the ball in the butter so it is coated, and then roll in the sugar mixture– be generous, this is the goodness part! Place about 4-6 balls in each cupcake tin- use your judgement.

4. Preheat oven to 400 and bake for 15 minutes. Again as I always say..know your oven! Mine is super hot so mine cooked really fast. ***if you did not use Red Star Active Dry Yeast cover your dough and let it sit for 20-30 minutes before cooking, the yeast needs to rise a bit more***

5. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes ( I know, the hardest part!! ) and then drizzle the vanilla glaze on each muffin. To make the vanilla glaze: Mix together 1 cup of powdered sugar, 2 tbsp of milk and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Enjoy!